The story made national headlines and the cafeteria worker put on paid leave is being called a scapegoat.

Tuesday night the Salt Lake City School Board of Education listened to parents about what they want done.

There was anger, hurt feelings and disappointment expressed in the meeting. One parent called what happened last Tuesday bullying and believe Shirley, the cafeteria manager put on leave, is a scapegoat. Several parents demanded she be allowed back to work and "the real person responsible" for the debacle be reprimanded, not Shirley.

Parents also shared their frustration over how nearly 40 school kids were denied lunch because their accounts were past due saying the district owes them an apology after being publicly humiliated. One parent even suggested the kids not only get an “I'm sorry,” but cupcakes along with the apology.

Parents say the national public outrage as a result, from vile Facebook comments, to nasty calls to the school and its teachers is also an embarrassment.

In response, the school board is investigating last Tuesday's incident and The Salt Lake City School District’s Child Nutrition Director released a preliminary report. The most significant changes taking effect immediately: no child will have their lunch taken away ever again, all students will be able to accrue one week of negative balances and still receive full meals and that once that balance reaches $0, parents will be notified every day until that account is filled back up.

"I feel like our lovely lunch lady Miss Shirley who faces the kids day in and day out is taking the hit for a decision I know she did not make," said parent Sarah Turley.

"Shaming kids for something they have no control over is wrong, it’s bullying plain and simple and there's the irony of throwing away perfectly good food," said parent Jacklyn Slack during the meeting.

After some heated statements, some board members took aim at the district.

The statement was another firework coming out of the meeting. Two board members spoke out saying, there's a culture within the district that breeds a sense of fear that even if employees believe for example, taking away a school lunch is wrong, they follow the directives of someone above. The comments alone got a lot of clapping from parents.

The Uintah Elementary School Principal posted a letter on the schools website saying in part "What happened last Tuesday was not standard practice. I am sincerely sorry that students were humiliated and food was wasted."

Parents say what happened last Tuesday is nothing new; they believe it happens at schools with lower socioeconomic status and think because this happened at Uintah, a school that doesn't have the same financial hardship as Title 1 schools, that perhaps that's also why it's garnered so much attention.

The preliminary report released also included the possible lapses saying department procedures were not followed, some parents weren't notified of the negative balances, and some weren't given enough time to put money into their school lunch accounts.

3 comments

I think ANY adult who participated in this debacle or didn’t step up in defense of the children in the lunchroom should lose their job – not the mention the superintendent. What kind of adults watch kids have food taken from their hands without taking the initiative to do something about it, or carry out instructions to steal food from children. No excuses, their behavior was atrocious.

Denise Smith

I was there that day having lunch with my daughter. I knew something was amiss but I didn’t witness lunches being thrown away. I did however see Shirley’s face. She had been crying and could barely speak. Making a blanket statement and saying any of the lunch staff involved should be fired is ridiculous. It’s her livelihood and she has some bigwig from the district there to enforce their policy. She was intimidated and frightened and obviously felt awful about what was happening. What happened was not right. It wasn’t. But it makes me angry that the name of the district “nutrition manager” has never been released and now it looks as though Shirley will take the fall. Let’s have the people responsible for the decision investigate themselves – what nonsense. Obviously they are trying to put blame on anyone but themselves.

Phil Harper

This isn’t an isolated incident. It is happening all over the state. I have relatives who work for the school district in Vernal and this IS school policy in some locations. It happened to my six year old grandson. He wasn’t given the fruit and milk either. He was just told that he didn’t have any money for lunch and had his food taken away. Now he only wants to take sack lunches so he doesn’t have to go hungry again!